Fish Markets in Early Modern England Fish Markets in Early Modern England Author Ashley Franklin Supervising Editor Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England EncyclopediaEMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Ashley Franklin, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

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A 1640 oil painting by Dutch painter Adrien van Ultretcht (1599–1652) of a fishmonger’s stall, with many types of fish and shellfish being sold by a merchant to a well-dressed woman. Courtesty of Wikimedia Commons and The Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent. Public Domain.
Fresh Fish: An Important Food Source

In early modern England, markets in most towns featured fresh, locally grown food products including meat, poultry, fish, fruits, dairy products, and vegetables. Most meat and fish needed to be bought daily to either eat or preserve by smoking or salting. England, Wales, and Scotland all have ample coastline and many seaside fishing villages provided fresh fish from the ocean, although individuals also fished local streams and rivers for trout or other freshwater fish. Wealthy estates also kept fish ponds to grow their own freshwater fish like pike, bream, and carp. According to experts at the International Fishery of the 16th century, Fish was a source of protein that was easy to preserve, transport, purchase, and prepare. Religion and economics also played a role in how much fish people consumed.

Who Sold Fish?

Because of the English people’s extensive consumption of fish, fishing as an occupation became prominent, second only to farming for food procurement. Markets were particular about which fishmongers (the term for a person who sells fish) supplied them. In the nation’s capital, London, fishmongers would either have to be a member of a livery company (a trade guild) or a freeman of London. Markets favored Londoners over countrymen, who were considered strangers in the rapidly growing city. The cost of what was sold at these markets was regulated by city officials such as the Lord Mayor or city counsellors. Known fish markets in London occurred at Stocks Market, Billingsgate, Fish Street, Leadenhall, and others.

Religion and Economics

Due to religious recommendations that originated with the Catholic Church but continued in Protestant England, fish was eaten extensively during Lent, the season of penance and fasting prior to Easter. Citizens abstained from meat and instead ate fish on Friday and Saturday. During Elizabeth I’s reign, eating fish was also promoted to bolster the Navy, since they caught and sold fish to raise revenue. Later, Wednesday was added as a fish day during Lent in part to create more jobs for the Navy seamen. Fasting from other meats was required by law, more to support the fisheries than for religious reasons, but the enforcement of the law fell to ecclesiastical courts. These strict dietary laws were mocked in Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside in a scene where two odious promoters (minor officials from a local parish) stop passers-by to inspect their baskets, confiscating those that have meat (intending to eat it themselves, of course).

Historians like Liza Picard and Keith Thomas emphasize that eating fish during Lent became more than a religious practice; it was a way to support mariners, fishermen, fishmongers, and the port towns they came from. Public markets were also an important social hub, a place not just to obtain food but also to get news about other townsfolk, town happenings, and who would be punished for criminal offences. The information gathered at markets and during exchanges with merchants like fishmongers helped define social differences, which were expressed in food choices.

Key Print Sources Picard, Liza. Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2004. Thomas, Keith. The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England. Oxford University Press, 2010. Trijp, Didi van. Fresh Fish: Observation up Close in Late Seventeenth-Century England. Notes and Records of the Royal Society vol. 75, 2021, pp. 311–332.
Key Online Sources Best, Michael. The Fish Market. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/city%20life/fishmarket.html. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026. The International Fishery of the 16th Century. Heritage: Newfoundland & Labrador. https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/exploration/16th-century-fishery.php. Accessed 27 Jun. 2025.
Image Sources Ultretcht, Adrien van. Fishmonger’s Stall. 1640. Oil on canvas. Wikimedia Commons and The Museum of Fine Arts, Gehtn. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adriaen_van_Utrecht_-_Fishmonger%27s_Stall_-_WGA24196.jpg.